He Accepted that a Long Time Ago
by Passing Obsession
Summary: "You're still you, 'Neki." A ghost of a smile began to form in the corners of his lips. "I accepted that a long time ago." (light Hideneki)


_I typed this in google docs and I think it messes up the formatting some, but the content is the same. Hope you like it!_

Hide tossed his pen - it was rather conveniently on Kaneki's desk; the stuff in their apartments were so mixed that really, either could live in either place - in the air idly, puffing a frustrated stream of air through his nose. Damn paper. Damn Yanokachi-Sensei and his penchant for long essays on the nonessential babblings of scientists who weren't even _right_ in the first place.

Leaning forward to slump over his keyboard in defeat and thump his chin down onto a fist, he let his mind wander for the moment. And his eyes, for that matter, as they found Kaneki, perched rather oddly on his couch, book in hand and impervious to the world. The vague irritation that had been poking at him slipped away as the corners of his mouth tugged upwards. He'd always found his friend's thing for odd - and often uncomfortable, he'd found a good pastime in imitating them on occasion - reading positions amusing, and in thoughts he'd given up on tucking somewhere safely away and accepted years ago, extremely cute. This time, Kaneki is thoroughly upside-down, knees hooked over the back of the misused furniture and white hair reaching for the hardwood, his grey eyes moving along the kanji Hide - he'd accepted this a long time ago too, it was just Kaneki -probably wouldn't understand even if said eyes moved at a normal-ish rate.

Involuntarily but not at all resisting, he felt the tugging turn into a full-on smile; it didn't really matter if the smile was tinged with sadness, did it? It was times like these - when Kaneki let himself be disconnected from his other thoughts, let the wall fall down - that Hide could see his friend slipping back into himself, back into who he was at the core all along.

Hide knew his friend had changed; he could _feel_ that Kaneki had changed, as intricately and deeply as Hide knew any other thing he knew about Kaneki, and more so than himself, probably. Kaneki had been pushed and hurt and _altered_ , but he was still Kaneki and kind and intelligent and a wonderful friend and _amazing_ ; no matter what color his hair was; no matter if his fingernails were unhealthy and un-growing; no matter the way Kaneki might think when he didn't notice Hide paying attention (he usually was.). They'd been something that went even deeper than the closest friends since elementary, and societal expectations be damned if he let things as simple as being a ghoul and some torture take even a smidgen of the bond they shared away from him...To be honest, he was just worried about Kaneki. Who wouldn't be, after all that crazy mess his friend has had to deal with? It wasn't healthy for him to bottle things up the way he always has, still does; and now that the stuff he's trying to push down has grown so much in pressure, he was going to explode at some point. If he would just let Hide help, acknowledge that Hide _would_ help, _wanted_ to help, _no matter how heavy his problems seemed_ …

He wished he could tell him any of that without Kaneki promptly having a heart attack - could ghouls get those? Hide heaved a shuddering sigh. He imagined so.

"What's wrong?" The sound startled him more than he'd care to admit, and Hide dropped the pen, but not after fumbling after it hopelessly. The discarded writing utensil bounced once, before rolling away, forlorn and abandoned, as Hide raised his head to look over his shoulder.

There was Kaneki, blinking almost owlishly at his own abrupt trip between realities. In one swift movement (One that Kaneki could never have made less than a year ago, Hide offhandedly noted), he was upright, walking towards where Hide sat at the desk with a light of concern in his eyes - for once, he was without the eye patch. "I could feel you staring. Are you alright, Hide?" His tone was soft, but Hide could feel the tension (suspicion?) beginning to creep along the words.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking, 'Neki." he stuttered. Hide felt his face change color - had he really been staring so long? He must have been; Kaneki didn't come out of books so easily.

Kaneki's eyebrows acquired an odd sort of crease between them, but he pressed no more. Taking a spot standing behind Hide's chair, he rested his hands on the back of said chair idly, and presumably reading his work over the top of his head. Hide, flustered but assuming that Kaneki had let him slide that time, rested his chin on on fist once again. He tried to focus on the paper he _really_ should have been working on before today. Slowly, he began to tap at the keys again, the glow of the monitor oddly bright in their dim-ish corner of the apartment.

Which is why he was startled once more by Kaneki's voice, after a long pause. Kaneki's voice wasn't scary at all - certainly not to him, at the very least - so he was almost mildly annoyed with himself when his fingers faltered, leaving a trail of random characters in their wake.

"I know when something's bothering you, Hide. You can l-let me help you?" His statement had an odd variation of tone as he lost his confidence (he hadn't done that in a long while), as if he'd surprised himself by speaking. Kaneki usually wasn't the one to pursue things like that in their relationship. Neither of them really did, actually, though Hide sometimes pushed limits only he was allowed to touch. They understood wanting to keep some things. They understood secrets.

But this was too much.

The irony of it didn't escape Hide - Kaneki, the one shutting everything up inside under lock and key, who Hide was actually upset over, telling him he can be open. Oh, wow, that irony's something. Maybe that was why his reply carried a bite that he really - really, he hadn't - intended. "Can I?"

He immediately regretted his tone when he saw Kaneki's face. He was hurt, and more than a little surprised at Hide's manner; his lips were parted slightly in shock, and his eyebrows had come together again. He glanced away in guilt. _I'm an idiot._ Sighing again, Hide ran a hand into his hair and shifted around on the chair to straddle it's back, feet on either side, so that the two faced each other. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-...it wasn't meant to come out like that." He apologized, lamely,"It's just...you don't…" Hide sighed. Again. He seemed to be doing that a lot today. "You haven't told me what's been bothering you, for a while, either, ya know?"

Kaneki didn't answer, and when he looked back up into his face, his friend wasn't staring at him, but off into space with his jaw tight, his mouth set in a thin line. Long ago, Hide had - rather humorously, from the other's point of view - dubbed this Kaneki's 'Thinking Face', despite how most took it as frustration - and how they tended to steer clear of it nowadays. Hide supposed Kaneki did look more threatening than he used to, from the perspective of a stranger - but Hide could never truly fear Kaneki, even if he tried. Even if, sometimes, Hide took a step back and marveled at how absolutely insane he might be to anyone else - he always came to the conclusion that if society thought Kaneki could be a monster, then every single one of them belonged firmly in Hell. His friend's hair looked almost blue in the laptop's sheen, making him seem otherworldly and so very separate in a way that made Hide's chest ache.

"Kaneki?" Hide tried. Immediately Kaneki's eyes snapped to his, and he wasn't sacred by the intensity of them. Kaneki had always been exceptionally strong about his feelings; Hide knew that. He was scared by the way they were unreadable to him - to _him_ , who could read Kaneki as well as Kaneki could read books. A second passed, where the two only stared, attempting to riddle themselves through whatever that tension gathering, that tightness in the air, was.

"What did you mean by that?" Even his voice was flat as stone, monotone and unreadable, and damn it, Kaneki had startled him again.

"Mean by...what?" For a moment, Hide was genuinely confused. And then he understood.

 _I've slipped._ Kaneki was afraid. Afraid of what Hide might know - of what he'd tried so very hard to conceal from Hide in an attempt to keep him safe. _Well, I guess that talk is coming sooner than I thought._

Kaneki's eyes were still on him, still trying to figure out what might be going on inside his head through Hide's own amber eyes.

And Kaneki must have found something there that Hide couldn't hide - when could he ever hide from Kaneki? It was just that Kaneki didn't usually look, because Hide didn't usually hide - because all at once, those unreadable eyes were terrified. Like a cornered animal - a very dangerous cornered animal, probably - his entire body tensed, completely still, save for the sharp inhalation of his breath.

Hide tried to prepare himself for how Kaneki might react, but really, he felt very calm. Certainly far more calm than he should be at a time like this, the slightly more insane part of him mused quietly. A double S rated ghoul, standing tense as a coiled spring, not feet from him, in said ghoul's apartment. But this wasn't a double S rated ghoul standing in front of him; this was Kaneki, his best friend in this entire world, terrified of what Hide might think of him.

Kaneki's grey eyes asked a question - so like him, when didn't Kaneki ask questions? - underneath the fear that held him captive. Hide saw it. _What do you know, Hide?_

Consciously, slowly, Hide raised a hand to trace the delicate skin underneath Kaneki's left eye. A tiny smile, meant to be reassuring, but probably alarming, crept onto his face. _Everything,_ he answered.

There was a second of complete and utter silence, in which the world stopped turning, Kaneki stopped breathing, and both eyes widened very, very slightly. The air was like fragile, crystalline glass in the second before it hits the ground.

And then it broke.

"H-Hidde I'm s-so sorry, I-I'm so sorry Hide, I-I didn't - I can't - You don't - Please, please don't hate me!" Kaneki sputtered, on and on, in fragments of sentences that continued in thought ( _I'm so sorry I didn't tell you Hide - I didn't want this -I can't change it -You don't understand how much I would change if I could - Please, please don't hate me-_ ) but not in sound, overlapping in the air; Kaneki was gripping his hair in his hands and squeezing his eyes shut. Hide didn't hear it. All he heard was Kaneki's heart beginning to break, fragile like that shattered silence but still swinging on a frayed string, and more than anything, he wanted to make it stop.

"Kaneki."

He stopped.

Tears ran down his face, and Hide noticed that the ones from Kaneki's left were tinted red as he wiped them away with the hand he still held there. The eyes opened.

"I could never hate you." He could see Kaneki struggling to grasp the notion, and s he went on. "You're still you, 'Neki," Hide comforted, pushing away the chair he stood from far earlier in order to be closer, a smile just beginning in a ghost of itself on the corners of his lips. "I accepted that a long time ago." And the fear left those large, beautiful grey eyes, clearing like clouds turning bright again after a terrible storm. The tears stopped falling like rain, but the shaking continued - this time, maybe - if he was lucky - in relief instead of fear.

He could see that Kaneki was having trouble trying to find his words - how ironic, he did love those - and so, Hide did what he did best. A large, genuine smile spread across his face like sunshine (Kaneki loved that, too, and Hide loved that Kaneki loved to tell him so).

"Besides, I think that one eye you've got is _really_ cool, 'Neki."

The halfling blinked in surprise, and Hide supposed he realised that in his emotion, his one and only kakugan had activated. A hand- almost absently - raised to cover it, even after all that, but the one Hide still held to his face batted it gently away. Hide, shaking his head, continued the tracing he'd started.

And finally, Kaneki smiled too. The tears had come back, but they weren't falling. For all the world, he looked like a dying man pulled back from the edge. No - a dying man pulled off the edge and told that he'd never fall again. A bubble of pride rose in his throat when he thought, _It's me, I made him feel better, I'm finally helping him._ And he was proud: proud to be someone held so dear by someone he loved so, so much - yeah, he accepted that a long time ago, too.

 _Kaneki's rubbing off on me, what with all this poetic mess,_ Hide laughed internally, the lightness bubbling from him like a spring, _I'm not_ really _complaining at all._

This time, the sound isn't startling at all, when Kaneki laughs. And it isn't startling at all when all of a sudden Hide wasn't sure who was in whose arms, who is comforting whom. In fact, they're both so much happier than they have been in far too long, clutching each other and crying as two reunited - which in a sense, they have, that quiet little 'insane' part of Hide muses.

When they had - well, he couldn't call it 'calmed down', or even 'composed themselves'...Well, when it was over (sort of), time had passed, quietly pushing them into eight o'clock, and they (Kaneki) decided that Hide was staying the night ("You are absolutely not leaving my apartment after sun-down in Tokyo without me, and I _really_ don't want to move, Hide. Don't complain, you didn't want to go anyways." ) Or something like that. Hide's head felt kind of emotional and jumbled: but it was the kind of emotional and jumbled where you feel resolved; like you've finally told someone you loved them...or reassured your half-ghoul best friend that you could never, ever hate them.


End file.
